In October 2021, at the large curtain wall glass hanging site of Beijing Municipal Administrative Center Library project, the “first” large curtain wall glass supplied by NorthGlass was officially installed, and the project officially entered the construction stage of curtain wall glass.

The two sections of the project each have 138 pieces of glass, and a total of 276 pieces of large glass are supplied by Tianjin NorthGlass. Among them, there are the largest 38 glass with its height of 15.3 meters, wide of 2.5 meters, an area of 37.625 ㎡, and a single total weight of 11.5 tons. Installation is expected to be completed by December 25^th.

The design concept of the Beijing Municipal Administrative Center Library comes from the traditional Chinese cultural symbol “red ink paste used for seals”. The square and red appearance is just like a dignified seal on the picture of “Oriental Green Star”. The tree-like architectural structure of the roof is like a forest umbrella cover, and its inspiration comes from ginkgo tree leaves, which imply the inheritance of local culture and knowledge. Two continuous hills are created in the interior space, and the NorthGlass “flat free” glass creates possibilities for the extension of the outdoor landscape to the interior space, thus blurring the boundary sense of the building and creating a scene experience where the building is wrapped in nature. With the ups and downs of the terrain, the height of 276 pieces of glass varies from 8 to 15 meters. Super large, ultra-thick and super-white glass brings the “pure natural” effect of temperature, light and space to the building, providing excellent conditions for reading and attracting readers to step into the warm and quiet spaces.

“This kind of glass is very difficult to purchase, tempering, coating, transport and hoisting, and there is no precedent for reference. Each link is a new challenge to the project team. After completion, it will be the first example in the world to fill the gap in the industry after its completion.” The responsible person of three major construction project of Beijing Investment Group Co., Ltd said.

The building is surrounded by glass facade, glass using “V” splicing, the folding angle between two pieces of glass from 74° to 133° and there are 14 Yin and Yang angles, adding an incomparable visual sense to the building, on the other hand, pairs are glass ribs to mutual support, and whether the thickness of the glass configuration, or the force system is rare.

In order to ensure that the facade top surface, the bottom and profile by shear force at the same time, Tianjin NorthGlass opens a U port at the top and bottom center, because 7 pieces of glass are different sizes, which means that once one piece of glass damage, sandwich, grinding edge, and many other processes can’t be proceed smoothly. At the same time, it needs to ensure both structure security and maintain high permeability of seven layers of glass as its the overall design. After working day and night, Tianjin NorhtGlass not only solved these problems, but also controlled the missing stacking gap after the interlayer within 1mm and the color difference △ E within 2.5.

The first piece of glass is fresh out

Glass sample reflection of Beijing Municipal Administrative Center Library

In order to ensure the success of the lifting, the project team prepared the plan in the preliminary stage, organized experts for demonstration and deduced the construction process, strictly implemented the control measures in the construction process, and finally the lifting work of the first large glass was successfully completed. Beijing Municipal Administrative Center Library project is scheduled to be completed by the end of December 2022. The super large, ultra-wide, long - span glass curtain wall will become a new landmark in Beijing.